


This boy gets lonely after you leave

by Trojie



Series: Let her dance with me (just for the hell of it) [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Jessica Moore Lives, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:58:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean knows they're both gonna leave him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This boy gets lonely after you leave

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my hurt/comfort bingo 2013 card, prompt 'abandonment issues'. Title from Chelsea Dagger by the Fratellis.

It's not like it hasn't happened before. 

They're not getting any closer to finding Dad and Sam's getting frustrated, Dean can tell. Sam's chafing at the life, at the lack of space and the lack of progress and Dean remembers this powder-keg feeling from just before Sam shoved a bit of paper in his face, grabbed his duffle and walked out the door, leaving Dean behind to read the words _'Dear Mr Winchester, we are delighted to inform you that you have been accepted -'_ and watch Dad drink himself to sleep. 

It'll be worse this time, because Dean won't have Dad to look after, and he's been stupid and let himself get used to not only having Sammy back but having Jess here as well, and it's not like, if Sam goes, Jess'll stay. They're gonna leave him, and Dean's gonna … he doesn't know what he's gonna do. Follow his dad's example, probably. (No-one can tell Dean he's not self-aware.) 

Dean keeps being sure, every time Sam gets mad, that this time is the time he's gonna walk out. There's a fifth all ready in his bag for when it happens. 

So far he's been wrong, but it's only a matter of time. So he starts bracing himself.

***

'No,' says Jess matter-of-factly one night when Dean tries to leave the motel room, the tension, Sam in the corner glowering at the laptop, in search of a bar.

'You're not my dad,' Dean points out.

'Good,' Jess says. 'Because frankly I'm starting to get that your dad did a shitty job.' She plants herself in front of the motel room door, folds her arms across her chest. The three plaid shirts she's wearing all layered-up bunch and fold. 'You keep doing this, every town we stop in,' she says, and clears her throat. 'Are you going out looking to hook up?'

Dean gapes at her. 'What? No!'

Across the room, Sam's looking startled too, but Jess doesn't look convinced.

'Why would you think that?' Dean asks her. He's actually hurt, and it's a weird, hollow feeling he doesn't like at all. 

'Because isn't that what you do?' Jess says. 'I'm not stupid, Dean, I can put patterns together when they're this repetitive. You said it yourself, you've never been in a relationship that lasted more than a month, and it's been about that long now and suddenly you're looking for any excuse to go out and stay out?'

'You try having a relationship longer than a month when you stay in places an average of three days,' Dean retorts. 'Doesn't make me a goddamn cheater.'

'So what, then?' Jess asks. 'Are we that awful to be around?'

Dean could pick Jess up and move her if he wanted to. He's done it before, for reasons that were a shitload more fun than this - he could do it now, get her out of the doorway so that he could escape. He doesn't want to have this fucking argument. 

'Will you get out of my way?' he asks, trying to keep his voice calm. 'I just want to go have a drink.'

'Jess,' says Sam from behind Dean. He's got up, and he's standing by the bed, one hand fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. 'Let him go.'

Jess bites her lip and uncrosses her arms. 'I just don't get it,' she says, but she does stand aside. 'Dean, please -'

'Thanks,' says Dean, and he escapes before she can say anything else to rip up his insides. It's a cold, clear night, and he fixes his eyes on the town lights up ahead, and starts walking. 

Maybe they'll go tonight, he thinks. Maybe he'll get back from the bar and they'll have cleared out their stuff. Maybe they'll even take his baby. He left the keys, he realises; the reassuring jangle in his pocket's not there. It'd be a clean break, at least - all the things he loves gone at once. Dean can steal something a bit easier to hide, follow Dad's cold, annoying trail on his own, and Sam and Jess can start again somewhere. He can almost picture them settling down with a white picket fence, going to college, being the cute quirky couple on the block with the classic car. 

He wishes they'd just do it, and go, and stop keeping him in suspense. He should never have let them get under his skin like this.

***

He comes back to the motel not as drunk as he'd like to be, and his baby's still parked outside, and the light's still on in the room, he can see the glow through the cheap, thin curtains. Guess tonight wasn't the night, and that probably means there's gonna be attempts to talk about shit that Dean's gonna have to sidestep. He might have to sleep on the couch, but he's kind of okay with that. It's like practice, for when it happens for real. 

Hell, it's late. Maybe they'll be asleep already and just forgot to turn the light off, and he can sneak in like it never happened. 

No dice. When he opens the door, both Sam and Jess are lying on the bed, and they're definitely waiting for him. Dean has that feeling he's hit a tripwire and the net is about to come down. Or maybe he's two steps away from one of those beartraps, the big metal ones. Sam's watching him warily and Jess is sitting hugging her knees like she's trying to keep herself under control. 

'Shut the door behind you,' Sam says in a low voice, getting up. 

Dean was doing it anyway, actually. The latch clicks into place as Sam makes it over to stand in front of Dean, close enough that Dean can smell motel soap on him. He had a shower, still smells clean and looks a little pinker than usual, and his hair's damp. 'This is gonna be hard for you to hear,' Sam says, and Dean braces himself. Maybe he was right earlier and tonight is the night after all, only they've decided they need to talk it out first. 'But you need to hear it.'

'I don't need the _it's not you, it's me_ speech,' Dean says, brushing Sam off and heading to the couch where his duffle and the coping mechanism he has stashed inside it are sitting. 'I get it. I'm not gonna tie you down, Sammy. Either of you. So you don't have to give me the big feelings-talk, okay? Just, y'know, send me a postcard a few times a year so I know you're still alive, and we're good.'

'That's just it,' Sam says, and he's followed Dean across the room. Jess is still watching them from the bed, biting her lip, and Dean wonders if Sam asked her to let him do this, out of some kind of misplaced idea that it'd be easier coming from him. 'We are good. Like this. I don't know where the hell you got the idea that we're gonna leave you, Dean, but it's not happening.' He pulls Dean around by the shoulder so they're looking each other in the eye. 'Not ever. You're my brother, you're our - you're _ours_. We're not going anywhere, so you'd better get used to it. And so help me, if you say a fucking word about chick-flick moments right now I will punch you.'

Sam's face is too raw, too cut-open. Dean's heart clenches, because he wants to believe so bad, loves his brother so much, but it's just a pretty lie, even if Sam doesn't mean it to be. Dean pulls away from him and looks at Jess instead. 'That sounds great,' he says softly. 'You in on this too, Jess?'

'Yes,' she says, lifting her chin defiantly. Fuck, she's so beautiful like this that it still floors Dean every time he sees it. 

'So, we're gonna share motel rooms for the rest of our lives? All three of us? You two're gonna nag me about vegetables and I'm gonna keep your guns clean, and we're gonna keep running the family business together? That's the plan?'

'If that's how it goes,' Jess says. She pushes to the foot of the bed and stands up, walks over to Dean. Dean can feel Sam step up behind him, throwing out heat. So this is how they're gonna trap him, between them, because they know it's what he wants most of anything. 'It doesn't have to. But whatever happens, Dean, it's gonna be all three of us.'

She twines her arms around his neck, and he buries his face in her short, fuzzy haircut on instinct. Sam's arms go around his waist, fingers finding their favourite holds around Dean's hipbones. 

'That's what I thought before,' Dean says softly. 'And I was wrong. There's no such thing as something lasting forever.' Sam stiffens like he's gonna say something, but Dean keeps talking, wants to head him off at the pass. 'It's just how the world works,' he says. 'We want different things.'

'Maybe we did back then,' Sam mutters against the nape of Dean's neck. 'Not anymore. We want the same things now, Dean.'

'It won't last,' Dean says, but Jess is kissing him now, and Sam's hands are moving around to unzip his fly, and it's hard to remember that he should be trying to make a clean break when it feels so good to be with them. 

'It doesn't have to,' says Jess, pulling away from his mouth long enough to get the words out. 'So things change. We can change with them. If hunting and motel rooms and always being on the road stops working for us, then we'll figure something out. But right now, Dean, you gotta believe us, we want this. And we want you, so will you quit trying to push us away?'

They get him to the bed and settle him into it, keep him between them. 

'I know you won't believe us,' Sam murmurs, kissing down Dean's belly now. 'Not tonight, not tomorrow, maybe not ever, but Dean, stop trying to sabotage this. We're good now, right? Please, just … just let something be good for once.'

Dean cards his fingers through Jess's hair as she sucks a hickey into the soft skin of his throat, and god, he wants it to be true so much that he can feel himself weakening. Hoping. 

'We're not going anywhere,' Jess says softly, pulling her shirts off and starting work on Dean's. 'Not without you too.'

'Not tonight, anyway,' Dean tries to joke, but he feels it fall flat as soon as he says it. 

Sam pulls Dean's belt free, sits up to yank his jeans off. 'Then tonight it is,' he says. 'If you can only believe in it for tonight, then that'll do, and we'll work on tomorrow when it comes, yeah?'

Dean leans up and catches Sam's mouth in a kiss, drags Jess in too, because this he can do. Three people, one bed, one night, he can do that math. And tomorrow will be another night, and they'll be in another town maybe, but after all, that's what Dean's good at, isn't it?

Maybe they're right, and that's how he can make this work.


End file.
